Brown University suspends Students for Justice in Palestine group after reports of harassment and 'banging on a vehicle'

Brown University placed its Students for Justice in Palestine under a temporary suspension while it investigates allegations of harassment and threatening actions by the group.

The Brown Daily Herald reported that the suspension stems around alleged actions by the group during an Oct. 18 protest when the Brown Corporation declined to divest from Israel. University Spokesperson Brian Clark told the outlet that there are numerous allegations leveled at the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter that will be investigated.

“Given the severity of alleged threatening, intimidating and harassing actions during an event on campus, Brown University has initiated a review of the event and required the Brown chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine to cease all organization activities pending full review of the matter,” Clark said. “The implementation of the interim measures is based on the severity of the alleged behavior and does not prejudge whether the organization violated policy.”

In an email to the campus community, Brown’s Executive Vice President for Planning and Policy Russell Carey said that behavior from the protesters was “entirely unacceptable.”

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In the email, Carey said that there were reports of protesters “screaming profanities at individuals,” “banging on a vehicle,” and even using a “racial epithet directed toward a person of color.”

“As a campus community, we should be resolute that these behaviors are not acceptable, are not reflective of the Brown student body or our community as a whole and are not commensurate with what we expect of ourselves and others,” Carey wrote in the email.

The Brown Divest Coalition, which includes Students for Justice in Palestine, told the outlet that the suspension and ”other allegations made against SJP by the administration are a retaliatory, politically-motivated ploy to defame protestors, fracture the student movement and detract from their complicity in the extermination of the Palestinian people.”

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“No amount of external investigations, increased police presence, conduct hearings or intimidating emails from Russell Carrey will quell our commitment to divestment and to the liberation of Palestine,” the group wrote.